Foreign News
Trump signs order to dismantle US education department
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, fulfilling a campaign pledge and a long-cherished goal of some conservatives.
Accusing the agency of “breath-taking failures”, the Republican president vowed to return the money it controls to individual states.
“We’re going to shut it down as quickly as possible,” Trump said, although the White House acknowledged that closing the agency outright would require an act of Congress. The move is already facing legal challenges from those seeking to block the agency’s closure as well as sweeping cuts to its staff announced last week.
Surrounded by children seated at school desks in the White House on Thursday, Trump said “the US spends more money on education by far than any other country”, yet he added that students rank near the bottom of the list.
The White House stated that his administration would move to cut parts of the department that remain within legal boundaries.
The executive order is likely to face legal challenges, like many of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal government.
At the signing ceremony, Trump praised Linda McMahon, whom he appointed to lead the department, and expressed his hope she would be the last secretary of education.
He said he would find “something else” for her to do within the administration.
After Trump signed the order, Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy announced plans to bring legislation aimed at closing the department.
But Republicans hold a slim 53-47 majority in the Senate, and closing a federal department would require 60 votes, making such a goal a longshot.
But even if the department is not formally closed, the Trump administration could decimate its funding and staff as it has done with the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which subsequently stopped many of its programmes and humanitarian work.
The text of the executive order does not include specifics on what actions the administration will take and which programmes might be axed.
It orders McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the department and give authority of such matters to state and local governments.
It also directs her to ensure “the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely”.
Established in 1979, the education department administers student loans and runs programmes that help low-income students.
But Trump has accused it of indoctrinating young people with racial, sexual, and political material.
Most US children attend public schools, which are free and run by local officials. A common misconception is that the federal education department operates US schools and sets curriculum, but that is primarily done by states and local districts.
And a relatively small percentage of funding for primary and secondary schools – about 13% – comes from federal funds. Most of the money comes from state and local taxes.
The agency also plays a prominent role in administering and overseeing the federal student loans used by millions of Americans to pay for higher education.
Soon after she was sworn in, McMahon sent the department’s 4,400 employees a memo titled “Our Department’s Final Mission”, a possible reference to Trump’s aim to shut the department.
“This is our opportunity to perform one final, unforgettable public service to future generations of students,” she wrote. “I hope you will join me in ensuring that when our final mission is complete; we will be able to say that we left American education freer, stronger, and with more hope for the future.”
Earlier reports suggested Trump would look to end some of the department’s programmes and send others to different departments, such as the Treasury, something that still may happen but wasn’t made clear in his executive order.
America’s largest teachers’ union recently decried Trump’s plans, saying he “doesn’t care about opportunity for all kids”.
In its statement, the American Federation of Teachers said: “No-one likes bureaucracy, and everyone’s in favour of more efficiency, so let’s find ways to accomplish that.
“But don’t use a ‘war on woke’ to attack the children living in poverty and the children with disabilities.”
For more than 40 years, conservatives have complained about the department and floated ideas to abolish it.
Just two years after it was established by Democratic President Jimmy Carter, his Republican replacement, Ronald Reagan, led calls to undo it.
It is the smallest agency in the president’s cabinet and takes up less than 2% of the total federal budget.
Some of those staff have already been affected by the Trump administration’s sweeping workforce cuts, led by the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).
Nearly 2,100 people at the agency are set to be placed on leave from Friday.
Efforts by Doge to slash federal spending and radically restructure – or simply abolish – many government agencies have been overseen by tech billionaire Elon Musk.
[BBC]
More than a thousand people have been left with respiratory problems after a sandstorm swept across Iraq’s central and southern parts of the country, health officials said.
One official in Muthanna province reported to the AFP news agency at least 700 cases of what they said was suffocation.
Footage shared online showed areas cloaked in a thick orange haze, with local media reporting power cuts and the suspension of flights in a number of regions.
Dust storms are common in Iraq, but some experts believe they are becoming more frequent due to climate change.
Pedestrians and police wore face masks to protect themselves from the dust and paramedics were on site to assist people with difficulty breathing, according to AFP.
Hospitals in Muthanna province in southern Iraq received at least “700 cases of suffocation”, a local health official said.
More than 250 people were taken to hospital in Najaf province, and at least 322 patients including children were sent to hospitals in Diwaniyah province.
A further 530 people reported breathing issues in Dhi Qar and Basra provinces.
The sandstorm blanketed Iraq’s southern provinces in an orange cloud that reduced visibility to less than one kilometre (0.62 mile).
The authorities were forced to shut down airports in the provinces of Najaf and Basra.
Conditions are expected to gradually improve by Tuesday morning, according to local weather services.
Iraq is listed by the UN as one of the five countries most vulnerable to climate change as it encounters regular sandstorms, sweltering heat and water scarcity.
A severe sandstorm in 2022 left one person dead and more than 5,000 needing treatment for respiratory illnesses.
Iraq will be experiencing more “dust days” in the future, according to its environment ministry.
[BBC]
Indian businessman Mehul Choksi has been arrested in Belgium following India’s request for his extradition.
Choksi, who left India in 2018, was arrested on Saturday, his lawyer Vijay Aggarwal told the BBC on Monday.
The diamond merchant is wanted by India for allegedly defrauding one of the country’s largest banks of nearly $1.8bn (£1.3bn).
Choksi has not commented publicly on the case, but his lawyer said they would appeal against his detention and also oppose his extradition to India.
“These are the obvious grounds on which we will argue the case, that he is not a flight risk and secondly, that he is extremely sick. He is undergoing cancer treatment,” Mr Agarwal said. He added that they would “contest the extradition on grounds that there isn’t enough evidence against him and the extradition request is politically motivated and the trial in India may not be fair”.
The BBC has reached out to India’s foreign ministry and financial crimes agency – the Enforcement Directorate (ED) – for comment.
According to a Times of India report, Choksi was arrested on the basis of two non-bailable warrants issued by an Indian court in 2018 and 2021 – although it’s not clear why the action came now.
Mehul Choksi and his nephew, Nirav Modi, are wanted by Indian authorities in connection with a $1.8bn fraud case at Punjab National Bank (PNB).
Niray Modi, who’s also been living abroad since 2018, is lodged in a prison in London and is awaiting extradition to India.
Both were high-profile diamond traders. Modi’s jewellery was worn by several Hollywood celebrities such as Naomi Watts and Kate Winslet. One of the biggest Bollywood stars, Priyanka Chopra, was his company’s brand ambassador. Choksi, meanwhile, was the owner of Gitanjali Gems, an Indian jewellery retailer which once had about 4,000 stores across India.
The ED has accused Choksi and Modi of colluding with some employees of PNB’s Brady House branch in Mumbai city to get fraudulent advances for payments to overseas suppliers of jewels.
These funds were then allegedly diverted and laundered.
Choksi and Modi have denied the allegations against them.
After leaving India, Choksi reportedly travelled to the US and later to Antigua – where he has citizenship. In 2021, he was reportedly arrested in Dominica and deported back to Antigua.
Hariprasad SV, a Bengaluru-based entrepreneur who had in 2016 alerted authorities about the alleged scam at PNB, said Choksi’s arrest was “great news”. “Apart from bringing him back, the most important thing is to get back all those billions of dollars he looted from India,” he told ANI news agency.
[BBC]
US President Donald Trump’s administration has exempted smartphones, computers and some other electronic devices from “reciprocal” tariffs, including the 125% levies imposed on Chinese imports.
US Customs and Border Patrol published a notice late on Friday explaining the goods would be excluded from Trump’s 10% global tariff on most countries and the much larger Chinese import tax.
The move comes after concerns from US tech companies that the price of gadgets could skyrocket, as many of them are made in China.
This is the first significant reprieve of any kind in Trump’s tariffs on China, with one trade analyst describing it as a “game-changer scenario”.
[BBC]
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